‘The view from above’: a theory of comparative philosophy

Abstract

What if doing philosophy across cultures is always implicitly a matter of metaphilosophy – of articulating more clearly the nature of philosophy itself? What if it forces us to ‘stand back’ hermeneutically and map out a ‘view from above’ of the underlying fabric of ideas – in their constitutive concepts, their relations to other ways of thinking, and their potential to be configured in alternative fascinating and fruitful ways?This article incorporates existing approaches to comparative philosophy within a single scheme of complementary philosophical activities, and a single overarching metaphilosophical project. These approaches are (1) ‘archival’ (exploring parallel but separate philosophical traditions), (2) ‘equivalentist’ (comparing traditions in terms of analogies and contrasts), and (3) ‘problem-solving’ (using multiple traditions to provide philosophical solutions). I situate these within (4) the overarching hermeneutic project of ‘mapping’ concepts and their possibilities. This entails the theory that philosophies drawing on multiple perspectives are always implicitly engaged in mapping out the underlying eidetic structure upon which philosophy does its work, and charting the conceptual possibilities surrounding any idea.

Phronesis Dimension (Al-Syu’ur Al-’Fadhillah) As A New Manhaj Of Contemporary Fiqh: Case Study of Central MUI Fatwa No. 14 of 2021 and East Java MUI Fatwa No. 1 of 2021 on the Law of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 Vaccine Products

“…This side makes the analysis of fatwa more novel and contextual in method and the breadth of fields involved, namely fiqh, science, and philosophy. This research used comparative and contrastive analysis (Frazier, 2020), as follow as: (1) 'archival' (exploring parallel but separate logical traditions within two fatwas), (2) 'equivalenting' (comparing logical traditions in terms of analogies and contrasts on two fatwas ), and (3) 'problem-considering" (using multiple consideration facts to provide conclusion). Finally, (4) the overarching phronesis reasoning in fatwa's arguments and their logical.…”

Conceptualising Bhāvana: How do contemplative Hindu traditions inform understanding emotions and well-being?

“…This paper discusses a selected theorisation from the Indian civilisation, where, the impact of a colonially implanted Euro-American psychology continues to invisibilise sophisticated Indian theorisations in teaching-learning, research and application. Even as we recognise that several philosophers, thinkers and leaders have been appreciative of the Indian philosophical traditions, in academia, an earlier held, European-American belief that philosophy originated only in the West and that Asian and Indian civilisation did not (even) have a philosophy (Frazier, 2011; 2020) has been recently corrected!! It is now accepted that Indians not only did have a philosophy, a rich system of metaphysics, logic and rationality as well as that these philosophical underpinnings translated themselves into an applied psychology practised through the millennia.…”